LocalNet360-Last September 2010, Google announced at a New York trade show that YouTube had become the number two (#2) search engine on the internet and that by 2015 about 50% of all online ads would be pay per view videos. As expected, in the next 3-4 years, Internet usage is going to multiply by up to 10 times what it is today due to the availability of the next generation of cell phone service called 4G. While it is still early for most small businesses to buy into the concept of online marketing, the truth is that now is the time to get started to build your Company’s presence online. In this article, we will discuss the importance of buying in to Online marketing to increase business as the availability of 4G skyrockets.
Mobile Web And 4G Marketing-Good or Bad?
Within the next 3-4 years, the 4G network is expected to be available in every city in the United States. What this means for businesses is an increase of real-time searches for your company, thanks to faster download and uploading times and/or streaming of content for websites on phones. No longer will potential customers be tied down to a PC or laptop on an Internet connection in order to conduct research or find a company that fits their needs. In fact, the majority of your customer searches will soon come from a mobile web search run on a 4G network.
It is estimated that a good 90% of all site views will be coming from a SmartPhone user browsing for a company that fits their needs on mobile web by 2015. In fact, in the past year where 4G was tested in select markets, the number of local searches nearly doubled, even though total market penetration is still small. What does this mean for your small business?
As more and more customers begin searching on the go, your business could significantly benefit. Being readily available on the internet through sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube can significantly improve your business volume. Take YouTube for an example. Currently, roughly 24 hours worth of video is uploaded every minute, which equates to about 35,000 hours, or roughly 4 years of video content daily. With the increased availability of 4G networks, and download speeds of up to 12 Mbps, streaming a video from YouTube could take as little as a few seconds. In fact, most SmartPhones using a 3G or 4G network already offer applications to watch YouTube videos on the go.
Investing time to properly advertise your business on the Internet will pay off. As more and more customers begin searching for companies on the go, your business should follow suit. If you begin getting your name out there now, the less you have to do when 4G markets become available in your market and also nationwide. Even expanding into test sites can significantly improve traffic to your website within the next few months.
Of course, the expansion of mobile web and 4G are but examples of how the Internet can be used for marketing the products and services of small businesses. And that should the market for 4G networks continue to grow as suggested by Google, many small businesses can begin to use this evolving resource to help grow their businesses regardless of whether they develop specific promotions or choose to use mobile advertising in a more general way such as highlighting the company’s products or services.
As you begin to develop and/or expand your presence on the Internet for your business consider this: Websites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are good solutions to help jumpstart your mobile marketing campaigns online, as most major sites already offer mobile versions of their main sites. However, you will need to develop more comprehensive strategies, since no one way will work for all businesses as you begin to build a customer base that you can then market to online on a regular basis. As stated earlier in this series, in order to rise above the crowd you will need more than just a website. Therefore, implementing several Internet based solutions over the next 12-24 months will be critical to the long term success for virtually every small and local business in America.
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